Post by Michael PendragonPost by Will DockeryDeep Blue Sassafras
As another day passes
your love
my love
continues.
One does not capitalize after a colon.
Maybe "one" reader has that rule. But "one" used in that context usually means "everyone," and that's incorrect. Sometimes one capitalizes after a colon, sometimes not: Psycho needs to learn the difference.
Post by Michael PendragonThere is also no conceivable reason why you should separate the sentence into two pieces by inserting a blank line midway through it.
The different stanzas contain slightly different thoughts: The first says "It's a new day and I find/tell myself you never left" - the second, "your love continues as does mine." The second continues on from the first, but that's no reason to compress them into one.
Post by Michael Pendragon"Another" is incorrect. The correct word is "each." "Each" denotes constancy: her love continues (to be a part of your life) each day.
Which would be wrong, as that's not the thought the speaker's expressing. (It is the thought the reader is meant to get, but not by spelling it out).
Post by Michael PendragonWhereas "another" is tentative. "Another" means "one more." Your love has lasted another day ...
Exactly: the speaker wakes up, and finds the love still there that day.
Post by Michael Pendragonbut it probably won't last for very many more. Since the speaker is informing someone that she'd *never* left, the implication is that she never will: thus, "each" expresses the correct meaning.
Neither of those "implications" is in the poem. The speaker discovers (or tells himself; the poem is deliberately ambiguous) on that day, that "she" and their love are still there; but he has no idea what next month will bring: He's not even thinking about next month; no one is, but "one" wannabe critic.
Post by Michael PendragonThe opening line, "You never left" is okay if you're Rocky Balboa. It's blunt and coarse -- and not in keeping with the spirit of a poem about lost love and wildflowers.
"You never left" is deliberately ambiguous: It could mean simple denial, or transcendence; it's up to the reader to decide which. Tt's not surprising that Poesydragon, who cannot (under)stand ambiguity, would miss that.
Poesy's suggested "less blunt and coarse" alternative,
You've never left ...
While failing to be any less blunt and coarse, does manage to trash that ambiguity.
Post by Michael PendragonThe phrase, "your love, my love" is hopelessly cliched. A google search pulls up Poem Hunter poems by people named "Aqua Flower" and "Tiku Akp" -- IOW: it's a phrase used by every amateur poet to come down the pike over the past 500 years.
But, as I'm sure you think it's "catchy," there's no point in arguing you out of it.
Poesydragon's google search managed to miss Nana Mouskouri's song. That's the most obvious allusion (which is probably where "Aqua Flower" et al got it from, too, however unconsciously). The fact that it isn't that obvious at all is a plus: one wants the reader to think of the original just enough to pick up its mood, but not enough to start thinking of it instead of the poem he intended to read.
Post by Michael PendragonFurther (and this is a personal preference), I find ending the poem's opening line with a colon to be a bit off-putting. Not only does it imply that you were unable to sustain the opening thought beyond three words, but it has the cold, technical feel of a business letter. "Dear Sir or Madam:"
I would replace it with either ellipses and a blank line, or an "em dash" and the same.
Both of those would have the effect of burying the end-word "left" - and it's an important word: This poem is about someone who left (or, in the speaker's reasoning, didn't leave at all).
Post by Michael PendragonDeep Blue Sassafras
You've never left ...
as each day passes
your love
continues.
However, this is still unsatisfactory as a poem. "Continues" is usually followed by a word or words explaining just what it continues to do. Apparently your "editor" has no better understanding of verbs/adverbs than you (talk about the blind leading the blind).
Of course it is not a critic's business to decide what your love's love is continuing to do. The stereotypical scenario would be that it continues to grow; whereas your Beat idols would probably say that it continues to stick to the sole of your shoe like discarded chewing gum.
I can't see where her love is doing any specific thing, and would drop "continues" altogether.
I'm sure Poesy isn't the only "one" who's unaware that "continue" can be used as an intransitive verb (meaning "to remain in existence or unchanged"). There's nothing wrong with ignorance, of course; we all start out ignorant about everything. Of course, there is something wrong with an ignorant person flaunting his ignorance as proof of his superior "editing" skills.
The cliched poetic lines expressing this sentiment would be "Your love is with me still," or "Your love still lives in my heart."
Probably why neither of those phrasings is used.
Post by Michael PendragonHowever, since these lines are much too florid for your choppy, two and three beat lines, I would simply go with "remains."
Deep Blue Sassafras
You've never left ...
as each day passes
your love
remains.
"Remains" does get in the idea that the auditor is dead, but in a rather grotesque way. (Ambiguity sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, depending on the various meanings.)
If I were rewriting Will's poem, I'd probably have substituted "endures." But it's not my poem; it's his poem, that I'm editing (not rewriting).
Post by Michael PendragonBut this still doesn't read correctly. People don't say things like "as each day passes" in real life. That's more poetic posturing -- attempting to make a common thought "poetical" by expressing it in a high-flown manner. It's the sort of poetic pretentiousness common to rank amateurs. "With every passing day" is better, but still far too cliched.
Good, since neither line is in the poem, or is going in (unless Obsesso's insistence does get Poesy the gig :)
Post by Michael PendragonDeep Blue Sassafras
You've never left ...
each day
your love
remains.
Well ... it's less horrible. One can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear.
The problem is that there's nothing there to work with. The basic thought "Though you're gone, your love lives on" (to quote Mitchell Parish's lyric to "Deep Purple") is pretty much the theme of every poem about lost love. You need something in your opening stanza to make your poem interesting.
Post by Michael PendragonAs is, you've got a skeletal outline waiting for someone to add some memorable words.
Once again, the name of the game here is editing, not rewriting.
Post by Michael PendragonPost by Will DockeryYou sleep
or you wander,
depending on the chosen myth.
I'm not sure which myth leaves the souls of the departed to wander, but whatever. The third line is just awful. It sounds like you're reading an essay to a class, rather than addressing the spirit of a lost love. The stanza only serves to affirm what was hinted at in the preceding one, and is literally saying "you're dead."
Wrong: it's saying the auditor is gone, but the speaker has no clue where she is or what she's doing.
Post by Michael PendragonDeep Blue Sassafras
You've never left ...
each day
your love
remains.
You're dead.
Which is the point where even the most stout-hearted of poets would crumble up his sheet of parchment and start over from scratch.
Once again, the problem is that there's nothing there. "You're dead." Whoop-de-damn-do.
Indeed; as if "remains" (with its strong hint of "you're dead") weren't bad enough, now Poesydragon insists on making that badness explicit. It would be tempting to metaphorically *crumple* up his "critique" at this point, but, in for a penny, in for a pound.
Post by Michael PendragonThe use of "chosen myth" in the third line also implies that the speaker doesn't believe in either myth. Therefore his dead lover would be performing neither of the options he's given her (sleeping or wandering). She would simply have ceased to exist.
It continues the ambiguity of the previous stanza (is the speaker in a place of denial, or one of transcendence?) "Myth" can mean either religious teaching, or whatever the speaker believes about the auditor; since it's a "chosen" myth, presumably the latter.
Post by Michael PendragonThere are several million better ways to express the thought that "you're dead." Pick one, or drop the stanza altogether.
Certainly the line "you're dead" is awful, irrespective of source. However, one must consider the source of that line.
Post by Michael PendragonPost by Will DockeryBut those
deep blue flowers in a box,
the color of your eyes,
the deep blue flowers
I found blooming
in the lumber yard
that I brought to you
that summer morning in 1982,
the flowers
that smelled like sassafras,
like you,
never leave my thoughts
day in, day out.
That's one helluva run-on! What was your "editor" thinking?
The important point here is: what was the speaker thinking? Here he's just getting isolated thoughts, over a period of time, which culminate in a conclusion (hence the final full stop, and end.)
Post by Michael Pendragon"But those deep blue flowers in a box, the color of your eyes, the deep blue flowers I found blooming in the lumber yard that I brought to you that summer morning in 1982, the flowers that smelled like sassafras, like you, never leave my thoughts day in, day out."
If this were a prose sentence, I'd probably use a semi-colon after "eyes" and probably dashes after "1982" and "sassafras" - but that stronger punctuation is both unnecessary (as there's a stanza break after each of those words), and counterproductive (the effect would be just to garbage up the piece with punctuation that distracts from the words).
Post by Michael PendragonYou're rambling on ... and only semi-coherently.
Indeed; I suspect that's normal for people coping with grief/loss. Which is what the speaker is doing. He is not, as Poesydragon would have him do, writing a poem to the absent one, looking for just those perfectly poetical words. If he were, I'd have no empathy for him.
Post by Michael PendragonFor example: you mean to say that the flowers were the color of her eyes, but what you've actually compared them to is the box.
No; the original (with no comma after "box") did inadvertently compare her eyes to the box, but that's no longer the case.
Post by Michael PendragonIt's also unclear whether the girl also "smelled like sassafras" or whether the smell of sassafras never leaves your thoughts.
As to the first conjunct: I liked that particular ambiguity in the phrase "like you". The idea that the auditor smelled like sassafrass, too, is obviously a minor connotation - note the stanza break between it and the preceding - but it doesn't hurt that it's there.
As to the second: it's clear that it's "the flowers," not the abstract "smell of sassafras," that never leaves the speaker's thoughts.
Post by Michael PendragonA set of ellipses or an "em dash" is required to separate the closing line's Johnny Mercer title from your "thoughts" that precede it.
This is the best stanza in your poem -- but that's not much of a compliment. I guess if one runs five of your randomly broken stanzas together (as I've done here), it increases the odds that you might actually have something to say.
In this case, the speaker is looking at, or thinking of, some pressed wildflowers that he picked for his lover and claiming (a melodramatic exaggeration, IMHO) that the memory of each never leaves him. I doubt "Bernstein" (in "Citizen Kane") thinks about that girl he glimpsed on the ferry as often as he claims, either, but at least he limits the frequency to once a month (give or take).
So the speaker is being melodramatic, and using hyperbole - is that wrong in a state of grief?
The problem is that Poesydragon doesn't see any speaker in a state of grief - all he sees is the author trying to write a poem - and of course he doesn't empathize with that.
Post by Michael PendragonForget-Me-Not
Your love still blooms
in memory --
like deep blue flowers
I picked for you
behind the lumber yard
that Summer day.
And there's where that particular editing ends up: Poesy has managed to turn Will's poem into the opening lines of a pop song (which may even fit the tune of "Deep Purple".
Your love still blooms in memory --
Like deep blue flowers I picked for thee
Behind the lumber yard that Summer day;
But flow'rs shall fade and Summer pass,
And snow come right up to your ass,
And memories will all be swept away.
etc., etc.
